It goes something like this: men and women are at war with each other because men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

Women have emotions and men do not.

Women want relationships and men do not.

Men have sexual desire and women not so much.

Therefore, men must manipulate as many women as possible into having sex with them (because that’s what all men want) and women must manipulate men into commitment and marriage (because that’s what all women want).

Which means that dating isn’t about having different experiences in order to learn about yourself, figure out what you want, and develop authentic connections with people (however those connections choose to express themselves).

It’s about playing the game (The Game). It has rules (The Rules) both for men (be as alpha as possible) and women (don’t have sex with him for 90 days, or until he puts a ring on it, or until hell freezes over, or whatever).

It means that women should look a certain way and act a certain way.

It means that men should look a certain way and act a certain way.

And if all goes well – if you follow The Rules, and drive the right car, and have the right body, and aren’t a total slut – then it means that the woman who is looking and acting a certain way and the man who is looking and acting a certain way will have a hugely expensive wedding and live happily ever after even if neither of them knows who the other person truly is, or what they themselves truly want, beneath all that looking and acting.

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There’s a story this culture likes to tell about men and women.

It goes something like this: ladies, all that newfound independence is ruining your love life (and so thank God there are men like comedian Steve Harvey here to ‘empower’ you by telling you this! And the fact that the second of his three marriages blew up into such a vitriolic mess doesn’t make him any less qualified to lecture you about relationships, right?)

It’s making men feel cowed and inadequate, and that’s your fault.

Or it’s making men feel like they can treat you like ‘sports fish’ (ie: think that having casual sex with you gives them the right to treat you badly), and that’s also your fault.

Don’t blame the men. They’re just stupid insensitive horndogs with no emotions and no sense of accountability or responsibility, so to actually expect anything of them only enables them to call you needy, desperate, crazy or a golddigger. So blame feminism. Blame yourself. The reason that some guy didn’t call you isn’t because he might be immature, or a user, or married. It’s because of something you did wrong (like sleeping with him too soon, you slut!), or another woman did wrong (like sleeping with him too soon, that slut!) so now you won’t get to marry him and have, like, a hundred of his babies. He’s just not that into you (nevermind if you’re not into him, but just didn’t know it yet).

(According to the dating gurus, I slept with my boyfriend way too soon and for the wrong reason. I slept with him, see, because I wanted to. I had been celibate since the end of my marriage and decided it was time to take a lover, so to speak. He was a friend, he was hot, and I knew he wasn’t an asshole. So I did it. And then, dear reader, I did it again. When he made a commitment to me, it wasn’t to get the cookie. It was because we had forged an authentic connection. It was also because I am fabulous.)

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And you do want to get married and have babies — right? — because if you don’t, then what is wrong with you? Calling off that wedding would be selfish, even though you already know it’s a mistake, because your family wants to see you happy and your Aunt Lydia is excited that her little Emma gets to be the flower girl and besides, where else are you going to wear that five thousand dollar dress?

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When I was but a wee twentysomething teaching English in Japan, an American woman in her early thirties reflected, “All my single friends want to be married. And all my married friends want to be single.”

She told me, “First you’ll see a wave of weddings. Then a wave of babies. Then a wave of divorces.”

She wasn’t wrong. I turned out to be ahead of the curve – among the first of my circle to get married, get babies, get divorced – but others quickly followed.

Divorce is hell. Which makes me wonder why so many of us skip and run into an institution that has such a high chance of going nuclear. Especially if you don’t yet know what to look for in a mate, because you don’t yet know what would serve you in a mate (and vice versa).

You get to that knowledge through experimentation, trial and error, but we don’t give that process its due; we’re too quick to think that something must be wrong with us.

“But don’t you think,” a married girlfriend said to me recently, “that men in Los Angeles only want to date twenty-five year olds?”

I presented my philosophy: “If a man only dates twenty-five year olds, then let him. Let him go. He is not your intended audience, and how convenient of him to have removed himself from the equation so that you don’t waste your time.”

What’s sad is that this culture presents this as some kind of norm, so women think they have to chase these guys anyway, or that the majority of these men are even capable of providing the kind of intimate, emotional connection women say they want (especially if the men are working all the time, which is how they got to be such successful, desirable alphas in the first place). Underneath the heterosexual fairy tale our culture likes to tell is the tacit, lowest-common-denominator, cynical understanding that men marry youth and beauty (the princess) and women marry wealth and status (the prince).

(Biology, people! It’s the nature of evolution! Get that into your head!)

This belief system may conveniently feed our insecurities in a way that serves our consumer culture (buy those breasts, that car, that designer outfit, that Botox, that house in Malibu)– but up to you whether you buy into it or sell your soul to it. Our beliefs act as a filter for the world: if that’s what you expect of human nature, that’s the reality your unconscious will co-create for you by pointing your perceptions to what supports those beliefs and screening out what doesn’t.

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The myth that all men are more or less the same – they don’t have feelings, they don’t care about relationships – keeps women off balance, insecure, doubting themselves, and in constant competition with other women. It cuts them off from their inner, intuitive voice that would alert them to red flags. It robs them of the sense of choice that comes with the belief in abundance. It makes many women feel that they are fully responsible for the success of their romantic relationships and makes some men feel that so long as they’re paying the bills, they’re not required to do anything else.

It makes way too many women believe that any relationship is better than no relationship – since eligible single men are as elusive as unicorns – so they better stay in the relationship they’re in, even if it’s emotionally or physically abusive.

It also ranks and evaluates men according to how much money they have — as if that has anything to do with how well they do or don’t treat women.

There’s an episode of MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER where Patti Stanger, the matchmaker in question, instructs the female millionaire client on how to present herself to a group of potential mates. Patti tells the woman – already drop-dead gorgeous, and the CEO and founder of a successful clothing line – to blow-out her long, wavy blonde hair and wear a body-fitting dress that shows off her legs. “None of this hippie-dippy stuff,” Patti says, gesturing to the woman’s boho-chic outfit.

Then Patti directly addresses the camera. Yes, she admits, viewers will criticize her for always giving women the same advice about how to look and what to wear (blow out your hair, wear a tight sexy dress). “It’s not what I want,” she says defensively, “it’s what the men want. They all tell me that’s how they want a woman to look.”

But that reminds me of something Henry Ford said, about how if he had asked the customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you see it right in front of you.

I define ‘style’ as the story you tell the world about yourself, and so what happens when that story is a little…off? Maybe you’re a boho chick in a tight-minidress world, and somewhere there’s a guy who might or might not know he’s looking for exactly that. A guy (or girl) whom you would adore. What if you were to lock eyes with that person across a crowded room…and then completely fail to recognize each other because of the story your outfit isn’t telling?

What if, instead of trying to appeal to the masses, you developed a very polished and particular point of view? That point of view, that style, that story, could act as an excellent filtering system, pulling in the people who resonate with it — and with you.

What if, instead of trying to please the people who might not like your natural style, you simply let them go? Let them go. They are not your intended audience.

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I heard Caroline Myss give this definition of a soulmate:

A soulmate is the person who makes your soul grow the most.

A soulmate, she added, could be anyone. Anyone. A lover, a spouse, a friend, a family member…or even an adversary.

This is different from the popular conception of ‘soulmate’ as someone who will always understand you, never cause you trouble, love you deeply and passionately and forever, never bother you with inconvenient needs of their own, always remember to put out the cat, and so on. Scratch a cynic, find a romantic: maybe because we can’t find that idealized version of a partner, we swing so quickly to statements like men only want to date twenty-five year olds or women don’t like nice guys.

(By the way, if you do something or pay for something only to expect sex in exchange, you do not qualify as ‘nice’.

And straight women do want nice guys. As a sex therapist recently said, and please excuse the blunt language, “Women want nice guys who fuck like jerks. And it’s easier to take a nice guy and teach him how to fuck like a jerk, then to take a jerk and teach him how to be a nice guy.” Amen.)

We have gotten it into our collective head that love is supposed to look a certain way and arrive in a highly specific kind of package. But what if it doesn’t work like that? What if we opened ourselves up to the possibility that love will surprise us? It will blow in from unexpected directions and push us to new places?

What if we accepted this idea that a ‘soulmate’ isn’t someone who completes us, but anyone who helps us figure out how to complete ourselves?

Maybe that would take some of the pressure off.

Maybe then the search for sex, companionship and love wouldn’t be a game, or a hunt, or a battle of conflicting agendas. It could be, instead, a daily practice of self-knowledge, authenticity, and communication (without going all woo-woo or breaking out the chants and beads or anything, unless of course you’re into that).

What if we opened up the fairy tale and shifted the dialogue a little bit?

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This is such an insightful article! I recently discovered a similar truth, while reading a letter by J R R Tolkien to one of his sons. Even back then (err 1940’s?) he was dispelling a lot of the same myths about romance. The same ones that plague us today!

It’s so refreshing to find that there are people, like you Justine, who are eager to knock down these stubborn, stuck up stupid opinions.

Justine – couldn’t agree with you more. “Soulmate” as its used is a form of spiritual tyranny. An ideal that one is supposed to “deserve” without having to do any work except via “manifestation” – the same kind of wish fulfillment and ego flattery that popular supernatural theism offers. We are ALL each other’s soulmates, for godsakes. In all my work, I harangue both men and women into radical self-responsibility – to CREATE love rather than look for it – and equally, if not more important – to remove the barriers we put up to it. It’s an old truth – love is not found – it is already here, if we practice it. And practice makes it even better. Sorry I missed you at Rachel’s writing camp in France! I like your way of thinking.

I sometimes feel that the search for a ‘soulmate’ is really a vestigial memory we all have of how we were once part of something much larger than us and that feeling of completeness, of not needing anything else. Maybe its a memory of being in the womb or an experience of the divine, that we all have had at some point, before being turned out of the garden. And now we seek it again, we seek it in union with others, a spiritual desire that gets entangled in our biological drive, and creates a mess because it can’t be fulfilled in that way.

I really enjoyed reading this. Too often I read about rules and guidelines of dating. These perceptions of what love should be is making it harder for people to find love. Open your mind and your heart and always work on loving yourself! Thanks for the great read!

I’m currently in a process of self-discovery. I’m learning to let go of the expectations that other people have for me, and live life in a way that makes me happy regardless of what others think.

I’m 28, and this week my father told me that my #1 priority in life should be to get married. (My 23-year-old brother gets married next month, and I’m very excited for him… but it seems to have turned up the pressure on me for some reason.)

I tend to date pretty consistently, and I’ve found that the most difficult thing while playing The Game is managing expectations. Dating means different things to different people. The trick is finding someone who wants what you want, and who allows you to be the most authentic version of yourself (and vice versa).

There are no generalities. There are no “tricks.” The only way to succeed is to be honest with others, and even more importantly, honest with yourself.

I think the point of your post is excellent, and I quite enjoyed reading it. I will say that “Women want nice guys who fuck like jerks” is sort of perpetuating another myth of the type that you’re encouraging people to eliminiate… (What about women who want nice guys who fuck like nice guys?) But that’s a nitpick. I hear your message, and I think it’s a good one.

I really like your list of myths. I think you nailed most of them. I would add, however, that I married a ‘nice guy’. You know, that one from high school that was kind of nerdy and all the girls overlooked, but then grew up handsome and responsible? Right? Wrong. During those lonely, damaging adolescent years, he had picked up a porn, then prostitute, then stripper habit that he couldn’t let go. He just lied so well that I didn’t know until faaaar too late. So, I would add:

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The myth for men that women will look like models, fuck like pornography, feed them like mom, and ask nothing in return. Flipside, women believe that men just want a woman who looks hot and is good in bed and that is all they need to be to keep a man happy and faithful.

Also, I am wrestling with the idea that we shouldn’t want an idealized partner yet we should have standards enough to know when to walk away because the relationship isn’t ‘good’ for us. That is a tough call in reality.

@Kristan But a ‘nice’ guy won’t sexually dominate you (in a good way) or throw you up against the wall (in a good way) at least not in the way we understand the word. :) A lot of sexual fantasy plays with power in a way that isn’t politically correct, which makes it difficult to talk about it while also being feminist.

@Lily Gatherer Great point about how ‘nice guys’ aren’t necessarily ‘nice guys’ just because they were geeks in high school. (Some of those geeks grew up ruthless, self-absorbed and discreetly sexist — they truly believe that men are superior to women — and are now in positions of power, where those beliefs are reinforced by the some of the other people they work and hang out with.)

You know, the best advice I ever picked up about dating + relationships + “being attractive” was to *be interesting and lead an interesting life* (which was my goal anyway, so how convenient). There is way too much emphasis on youth + conventional beauty — because that can sell us face creams and cosmetic surgery and whatever — and not enough on personal warmth, charisma, sensuality, style, intellect, confidence. And you can’t buy those latter qualities, you can only develop them through a dynamic engagement with your own cool, epic life.

In marketing, in business, in the workworld — hell, in blogging — the message being hammered into people over and over again is to Be Remarkable, find your point of awesomeness, master your niche, be so excellent they can’t ignore you — or easily replace you.

(Not to mention that, when you’re remarkable, you attract remarkable men and women.)

How interesting that, in the dating market, we do NOT give this advice to women. And instead of encouraging them to develop that inner awesomeness to fall back on (instead of the fear of being alone), we still advise them to play to the masses, smile, listen to *him* talk, be supportive, etc. and — be hot, be hot, be hot. But hotness is a COMMODITY, and it will only get you so far. I wish more young women understood that. But in a culture that profits so handsomely off of female anxiety, that isn’t very likely.

Also, I think, deep down, we *know* when we’re getting nothing but damage, when we *need* to walk away from a toxic relationship. But we’re scared of being alone, or we “really love him/her” or we’re addicted to that person or co-dependent or whatever. So we minimize, distort, rationalize, invent reasons to stay. Chasing some idealized partner is not the same as having high standards.

You’ll be fabulous as soon as you become responsible for your female/feminine power and not a moment before. You’ll always be assinine, ugly and idiotic as a feminist because feminism is anti-male bigotry pure and simple. (Men and thinking women have not only the right but the responsibility to blame feminism.) You’ll be respected as soon as you risk giving love to a LOVER rather than ‘taking’ (pun intended) a lover.

The Future of Gender (sexual) Politics by Goldich might help you dispel some of your more foolish notions…particularly that women treat men better than men treat women or that women deserve speshul sympathy in today’s world.

Besides, adult women have far more important things to do than obsess about their personal fulfillment or ‘fabulousness’. The world’s population just passed 7 billion and is rising nearly vertically while starvation increases apace. Since rug rats come from vaginal animals who breed like rabbits and since the ‘no’-sex always controls relationships (read access to that most precious of ‘assets’), you might use your power to try to bring some sense of personal responsibility to your infantile and utterly entitled sex.

Justine, I swear, sometimes I think we’re living parallel lives. I was with the same man for 16 years, from the age of 18. He was totally the wrong person for me by the time I was about 27, but we were married by then. It took a long (looong) time for me to recognize it, realize what I wanted, realize he wasn’t able to provide that and then let go. By then, we had 3 kids. We’re now struggling through finalizing the divorce and a messy custody battle. He is extremely angry and bitter, even after almost 14 months separated. He had a girlfriend within 6 weeks of me saying I was miserable and couldn’t do it anymore. After dating for 6 months, I went out about once a month. Two of them I saw very frequently for a month but they just didn’t work out for a variety of reasons but boy did I learn a lot about what I wanted, who I was at the time, who I wanted to be and what needs of mine absolutely cannot be comprised. And after the 6th convo in 6 months about how it wasn’t going to work out, I sat down, had a good hard cry and said to the Universe: You know what? I have no idea what I’m doing. I know I’m better off than staying with him, but I don’t know if I can move forward. God, you know my needs, you know my heart, YOU find the right guy for me. I’m just gonna sit here and read and wait.
Lo and behold, 4 days later, I met someone online, via LinkedIn of all places, that is the perfect match for me. He’s empathetic with a high EQ, an entrepreneur, educated, a writer, a photographer, a great dad and sexy. He’s quirky, silly, crabby, easily annoyed by stupidity, firm in his boundaries, honest to a fault and a whole mess of other things. He says one of the things he likes best about me is that I challenge him and loves my brain. But I know exactly what you mean and when I read what you write, it rings with authenticity and honesty, which I love. It feels *healthy* to read your blog and contemplate it, like meditation.
Thank you thank you for being you and putting it out there. You are a fantastic example for women.
xoxoxo
L

@Lara Taylor Thank you! That means a great deal….One of my favorite sayings is “clarity through engagement”: you learn by doing. I don’t believe in The Secret/manifestation stuff, but I believe there’s a lot of power in training your brain what to seek out, and then staying the course. I would say to myself (and others) that I wanted someone who would be my best friend, my lover, and good for my kids. That was my criteria. Lo and behold. :)

Censorship, and false accusations of misogyny are SOP for feebleminded feminists. So is the ‘nut’ character assassination. That said you have been easy because there’s really no one home. Buh-bye…indeed.

And for all the men pussy whipped men who happen on to this site: http://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Getting-Screwed-When-Volume/dp/0615327478 here’s some fine fair warning. Feminism is spreading it’s ugly tentacles everywhere. Here’s to the day when women get a taste of their own medicine in the family court system. At a minimum, women who rely on false accusations deserve to do some serious time. That said, you’ve got to give old Elon credit for playing his post-nup game fairly well. He could have done better by finding a way to make his ex (our lovely blogger) pay for the public shame game she tried to use to squeeze him. Of course he should have been able to demand his name back too. The idea that any woman can carry a man’s name around with her after he (or she) is done boggles the mind. But of course, nothing’s fair in tyrannical feminist regimes.

Accusations of misogyny are indeed standard when there’s say ANY departure from the misandrist feminist or garden variety female-ist Party Line. Of course blatant public misandry (feminism) is always ignored by you, by your sisters and by the traitorous male feminist stooges who flunkie for you…but you’re wrong. Referring to human females who breed like rabbits without a thought in the world (see the recent LA Times series starting last Sunday) as ‘vaginal animals’ is simply an unpleasant but utterly common reality. Thankfully there are occasionally a few inspiring women who do use their heads before they use their vaginas but those kind of women are vanishingly rare in an idiotic Vagina Monologue world…so you can spare me the knee jerk accusations of misogyny or the equally nasty ‘nut’ character assassinations. As far as attacks on your behavior (ironically involving public shaming of your ex) you’ve got to be able to distinguish between your behavior and personality. I don’t know you well enough to personally attack you and I generally don’t attack people personally unless I have some really good reasons to. What I AM attacking is the thin skinned infantile nature of today’s ever so easily ‘offended’ women who use utterly false victimhood to bully the rest of us. Remember Larry Summers at Harvard? Thought you were supposed to be ‘equal’ as a ‘gender’ (that is as ‘sex’ for thinking people). You can ignore all me all you like but you won’t be able to ignore reality forever.
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That said, you’ll note that I made several arguable assertions so you better go back to school to bone up on your proofs. The sad thing in this totalitarian tyranny that feminists have created is that there is no room for argument period. Gotta give you some credit though…because you were brave enough not to censor me outright.

Dude, I hope you understand irony. Calling me ‘sick’ and ‘cowardly’ but not even having the balls to state why really shows me how healthy and courageous you are. Why not at least try to shoot some holes in my thoughts if you feel so moved to label me pejoratively.

My poor kids, I burned the pancakes because I was reading this, holding my laptop while flipping those blackened disks. I have been writing about this topic recently too, not as smartly as you, but the same concept that is unfolding in my own life. I also think there is added complication when you are a dating single mother, add living in the Bible belt and you’ve got a whole other set of complications. I am working hard on sorting through what society says I want in a relationship and what I really want from a relationship. They seem to be really different. I feel like such a pioneer :-)

Tonight my lover and I are going on our first date. I’m so nervous I want to throw up, and so excited it makes me giggle.

@Guest Guest, let’s be clear here, for the sake of some people who might be reading this: misogyny is the dislike and hatred of women. Period. It can be expressed through sexual discrimination, violence against women, the denigration or objectification of women.

That you think it’s acceptable *under any circumstances* to refer to women as ‘vaginal animals’ has nothing to do with any kind of intellectual argument of any sort but speaks to your own feelings about women (and, apparently, to men’s seemingly innate inability to put on a condom, which absolves them of all responsibility in such matters) or at least what you characterize as a certain type of woman (…sir, your virgin/whore complex is showing…)

I could deconstruct your posts and point up other places — like equating ‘female personal fulfillment’ with uselessness and lack of value (because a woman wouldn’t possibly see the creation of value, service to the world, as an integral part of her quest for fabulousness, right?) — where you’re running on contemptuous assumptions (including your assumption that I was “trying to shame my ex to squeeze him” which *of course* is an attack on my character through what it implies about me in particular and women in general — while assigning men like my ex a kind of kneejerk, innocent-victim status).

That doesn’t reflect some kind of universal truth or objective reality; that reflects your own paradigm through which you understand and filter the world. And it happens to be a misogynist one. I don’t say that to attack or insult or even criticize you, and I don’t say it to censor you, or because you disagree with feminism (or at least your interpretation of what feminism actually is). It is what it is. If anything, I appreciate (somewhat) your posts here because they surface an attitude toward women that continues to exist but is often concealed beneath a more socially appropriate veneer.

Oh, love, you *are* a pioneer and I salute your courage + your trailblazing ways. Whenever a woman steps outside the traditional heteronormative script in any way, she’s forced to forge her own path, whether she likes it or not, whether she sees herself as radical or innovative or just a regular jane. I don’t buy into this idea that women are paralyzed and/or stressed out by all the *choices* that feminism has given us (see, the evils of that nasty, life-sucking feminism!) because I think that sense of ‘choice’ has been wildly inflated. In terms of overarching female life models, there’s still only two: the traditional one (wife/mother) and anything else (including combining wife- and motherhood with a career). So when you opt for ‘anything else’, it’s important to recognize the importance and challenge of that, so you know it’s not just you — it’s also the lack of economic/political/emotional support structures that surround you — it’s you in the wilderness, following the calling of your soul. Where what you do and how you do it will leave footprints for others.

Ms. MUSK, lets be clear here. We certainly don’t need patronizing lectures from you about the definitions of words particularly from women who don’t even seem to know the term misandry: eg the dislike and hatred of men, sexual discrimination, vice/violence against men, the denigration or objectification of men. You seem to be unwilling to even acknowledge the dark side of woman which is every bit as evil as the dark side of man is brutal…particularly in this bigoted feminist age. You also seem to be happy to play all the standard slanderous girl games that misandrist women prefer while you go on building the case that your coddled, infantile and utterly entitled (in the Western world anyway) sex is somehow entitled to speshul sympathy.
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Yes, I know that feminists have a huge problem with free speech. If they can’t abuse proxy violence (the state’s) to stifle free speech they fall back on *under any circumstances* shame games to do the dirty on their opponents while they play poor little ‘offended’ victim saints. Let’s be clear here. I used ‘vaginal animals’ to be provocative and to show that women both control reproduction and most commonly breed like thoughtless animals in a world already choking on rug rats. That’s fairly mild in a world where your twisted sisters ‘hilariously’ and ‘fabulously’ mock male genital mutilation with near perfect impunity on national TV talk shows. It’s also fairly mild in a world where men have no reproductive rights whatsoever and where women as the ‘yes’-is-‘no’ sex both control and abuse sexuality for their own purposes but in which women constantly scream the idiotic fallacy that ‘a woman’s body is a woman’s right’ without ever considering Woman’s responsibility for her huge reproductive power. For instance, did you personally even give a second thought to the effects on the world of bringing 5 more kids into a world…and a gluttonous Western world where they will be the biggest hogs at the trough to boot? Virgin whore complex!? Is that the best you can do to slander me? FYI: there aren’t any of-age virgins left in the Western world where SlutWalking is stupidly celebrated by feminist bigots as ‘female’ empowerment or where rather rich middle school ‘alpha’ girls are selling their virginity as a commodity.
***
As far as female fulfillment goes, you and your whole sex need to get a clue. While your ex is putting rockets into space, building electric cars, and putting solar cells on homes, you and your silly sisters are genuflecting fatuously about an (albeit important) organ located well below your navels. I had hoped that female empowerment might mean that someday Woman would grow up and show us something wise…that is contribute to our common welfare. But instead we have a stupid hate movement called feminism, hateful whorishness as ‘empowerment’, and the gluttonous Material Girl syndrome run rampant. You don’t seem to understand that since the world is already crawling in rug rats the worth of female sexuality is plummeting. That means that your platinum vaginas and your golden wombs will command less blood, sweat and tears from the suckers you sell sexual services for status to. It also means that it’s time to get off your bigoted booties and begin to bring wise female power into the world…rather than trying to be witless wanna-be-men or scapegoating men shamelessly. THAT’s why I popped your juvenile balloon here. Be a pioneer so we can salute YOUR courage and YOUR trailblazing ways but go into the female/feminine wild (see Wild: An Elemental Journey) so you don’t become just one more boring bitch chortling happily about the End of Men.
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And as far as your ex goes, you’re always welcome to challenge my assumptions. That said, based on your shaming behavior here…and based on the fact that airing one’s dirty marital linens in public is rarely done for NICE reasons, I don’t plan on changing my mind before you convince me otherwise. For the record, I’m not judging your ex’s status because as far as I know he kept his mouth shut so I don’t have HIS side of the story. I damn well do know that the deck is totally stacked against men in the divorce/alimony/custody game…thanks to feminist hate mongering, thanks to female privilege, and thanks to male disposability…so when you run your mouth in public about your ex as your divorce is in play (a standard form of female violence) things start to stink and stink bad.
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So I guess your paradigm happens to be a misandrist one and all you plan to do is to falsely label me so you don’t have to address ‘universal truths’ or ‘objective realities’. You damn well do slander me as a blanket ‘misogynist’ to attack, to insult, and to criticize me but being a woman you can rely on your female privilege to be able to commit concealed aggression so you never have to be accountable for your dark side. Clever but since MOST women are what MOST women are today, female entitlement is what is it is. The irony of womankind hiding behind politically correct but utterly bigoted socially en-FORCED veneers AS they condemn men for daring to pull away the loathsome Lace Curtain IS indeed amusing. For the record, Jay Griffith scorns and ridicules Western white males mercilessly (and hypocritically) but since she is straight about it and since she is otherwise amusing as hell, I actually like her. As for you, trying to silence me through slander tells me more about your character than it does about my attitudes. This is the kind of Foot Print your Twisted Sisters (Steinhem, Valenti, Marcotte, etc) are infamous for. Is that really who you aspire to be too?
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To be clear, my interpretation of what gender-feminism is…is based on scholarship. It is a bigoted hate movement built on discredited ideologies (Marxism, Classism, and Romanticism) recycled from the trash heap of history….to paraphrase Nathanson and Young. Many DECENT women on both sides of the political world have written about how false, totalitarian and evil your favorite mainstream hate movement is. You cannot interpret feminism as you like (the standard tactic feminists use to have their cake and eat it too) because we live in a world where objective truth surfaces sooner or later. You can also be sure that men (and good women) are going to swat this niggardly nonsense down sooner rather than later because when you abuse shared institutions to destroy males as an entire sex…sooner or later you will have created a very dangerous ‘animal’. And since this particular animal is no stranger to war, it would behoove decent women (like Marissa Mayer?) to get on the right side of history before that war begins in earnest.
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That said, I’m beginning to get very bored here. Thanks for at least being willing to stay somewhat open to ‘offensive’ truths. That’s bigger than normal in your Twisted Sisters’ Orwellian world. Come back after you’ve done some homework and I’ll consider another foray but for please…all that obsessive vagina gazing has got to go…if you are ever to create female life models more interesting than wife or wanna-be-man.

Ms. (that’s HIS name so give it back to him for goodness sake) MUSK, here’s a clip from YOUR very own “scariest country on the planet”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hLJHR0MpKos#! In the interests of balance, you might at least acknowledge the bigoted feminist nonsense that you were most likely brainwashed with from the time you were born.
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Personal responsibility is something you are obviously not too well acquainted with since you keep slandering me with your lovely label rather than responding REASON-ably. Ladyballs indeed!? Is that ironic misogynist insult to female courage intended to shame me somehow as a male? Obviously you haven’t read Hoff Sommers’ Who Stole Feminism for more on FEMINIST misogyny or you would have hardly set yourself up this way.
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That said, once you cool down…I do hope you learned something here. One of the more important things is to remember that women (female human-animals) no longer deserve to be put on pedestals (moral or otherwise)….and never really did. Once women begin to get the true implications of equality (say being drafted to fuck the suicide bombers who dream of 72 virgins in heaven along side the men who can be drafted to fight terrorists) I imagine we will hear a lot less prattling female supremacist nonsense about ‘equality’. In the meantime, enjoy your illusions. As for me, this was a very helpful education…one for which I thank you ever so gratefully.
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And much as l enjoy your discomfort given the hell that you and your Twisted Sisters COLLECTIVELY put men through today…I do hope for your sake and for your boys’ sake you find your-sex someday soon. It’s gotta be really frightening navigating through a world in which your Twisted Sisters have destroyed all functional female landmarks and left your ‘unfulfilled’ (or is that un-filled) sex stranded in one huge dysfunctional void. That said, at least you are asking some questions and that’s a start.
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As far as my name goes, I’ll do that on one condition…that you cease the shame games and ensure everyone else on your blog does so as well. To play ball in Orwellian worlds where feminists ‘trash’ people just like the Communist Chinese do is no fun. Until feminists and women begin to play by civilized rules, (free, truthful, respect-able, response-able and reason-able) there’s no reason whatsoever to be ballsy with em.

Of course we’re done. You’ve got decades of work to do before you stop flattering feebleminded female fools. Of course, for now feminist bigots can set the tone of the discussion but that will soon change. Hope you get a clue in time. It’d help you a lot with your dating advice too.

@Guest Wow. Mr. Brave Anonymous, When you introduce the terms rug rats/ vagina animals/pussy-whipped etc into your “argument”-there is nothing more you need add; your position, as well as what you are, is succinctly stated.
Please leave this site knowing you have been undeservedly flattered if any took the time to read, let alone respond (as Justine did) to your vicious yet vacous rants.

Tickled that you too took that time to ‘flatter’ me. Glad you were grateful for how succinctly I made my admittedly politically incorrect points…because that shows I’m not wasting to much space on big things. Justine (aka Ms. Musk) will survive because there was nothing really vicious or vacuous in what I said to her (all her ‘offended’ shame gaming notwithstanding) but you need to get over the white knight nonsense (assuming you are a guy) because she is a big girl who can hold her own or is able go get some schooling so she can hold her own. And just for you, since you are the person who probably needs the most help here:

Mating tips for men:

1) Toss feminists to the dogs unconditionally (eg. to Tucker Max and his ilk) because all feminists will do is breed more man-hating metrosexual male monkeys or mean spirited, misandrist and idiotic female apes. If the dogs are too disgusted or wise to do em, toss em to male feminist flunkies/stooges who deserve to be destroyed (by man-hating women) as traitors to the entire male sex. This one tip will do more to reduce the odds of losing one’s balls than ANY other single thing a man can do. If you don’t believe me, be sure to read Legalizing Misandry or Spreading Misandry by Nathanson and Young from cover to cover before you diss what I have to say as vicious or vacuous. To have intimate relations with gender feminists is like a Jewish person sleeping with a Nazi and that rarely works as well as the female-male relationship did in the feature film Black Book.

2) Date, mate but never marry (marriage is suicide for men today unless one is a proactive alpha male like Ms. MUSK’s ex.) only serious anti-feminists. Any woman who is unwilling to challenge this bigoted hate movement is either too stupid to know better (in which case you certainly don’t want her) or is happily hate-full in which case you’ll be sleeping with your worst enemy. As a man, your deserve to have your human rights, your welfare, and your courage respected equitably before you jump into bed in a wicked woman’s world in which you are getting the shaft everywhere you look.

3) Never date, mate or even consider marrying women who ‘take’ (pun intended) you as a ‘friend’ rather than who love (and who sometimes hate) you as a lover. Women tend to enjoy the Big Lie that men and women can be ‘friends’ because it allows them to have their cake (superior female sexual power) and eat it (superior male status power) too but any man with a clue knows better. As Snarch shows in Passionate Marriage…good hot relationships involved conditional combat between opposites. No matter how much loathsome ‘like-like-like’ Valley Girl lying feminists do, the war between the sexes will always be a reality. The trick is to keep the game somewhat clean so that the combat can create something constructive.

And that, our little white knight protector of poor little ‘put upon’ girls (NOT!) is more than you deserve. You can thank me as soon as you get a clue but I’m not holding my breath. Guys like you are a dime a dozen in the world today. Imagine throwing oneself over an ‘EQUAL’ woman to take the bullets for her as a deranged shooter sprays the theater. This is the very personification of suicidal stupidity yet men the world over still haven’t gotten the message about how much the world has changed for the worse…and it was never good for men in this regard. The only good thing here is that white knights will rapidly remove themselves from the gene pool in an age where chivalry is an anachronism.

Wow!!! sounds like your in the Bitter Barn over there. There are good men out there, just as well as the bad ones. People are just that PEOPLE!!! Who have their own thought process, their own ideas of what they are looking for.

@Two of Us Dating Right, I see that you represent an online dating service. Instead of insulting me as ‘bitter’ — and trying to discredit me by implying emotionalism, etc. (come on now, we can do better, and if you’re a woman I slap you gently on the wrist) — why not just argue the points? Or elaborate on them? Your perspective here would be welcome + interesting.

(Also, from a marketing perspective, it would have been a good chance for you to promote your service in a subtle, authentic way.)

My sister met her husband through an online dating service. So I know you guys do good. :)

Hi Justine, just been reading some of the posts by “guest”. He sounds like my evil ex. Hey, maybe it is him :-)

There is one point that I would like to bring up though; I don’t know about the courts in the US, but in Australia, it seems that they are for the man instead of the woman.

My ex left me because I became ill and couldn’t work for months (gee, what a nerve I had becoming ill like that. What was I thinking of?). Of course, he left out the part where he lived off my money for a long time (oh yes, he suffered from selective memory, you see). In the end, he simply took off with a huge amount of my own money (which came to me on the death of my mother); he purchased himself a Porsche with that money, and kept the so-called investment shares that were to be for our retirement. I couldn’t fight him to get back what was mine, let alone ask for any monetary assistance as I couldn’t work full time! So, I had to let go and cut my losses as the legal fees were so high that I couldn’t afford to live and pay rent, bills, etc.

The ex ran off with some bimbo, and as far as I know she’s now sitting in the Porsche that belongs to me. So whoever said the courts always find for the woman is living in a dreamworld.

“Guest” are you my evil ex in disguise? If so, please return the money you stole from me through the shares and retirement fund; you can keep the Porsche if it makes you feel like a man.

Sylvia dear, the family (read kangeroo) courts in both nations are a feminist-subjegated outrage and notoriously corrupt. Not surprised that you didn’t get your toy back because your thinking is so scattered and irresponsible but you can be sure that your story is a minor one compared to what men routinely suffer in the family court system. Always love that shame gamin you girly girls use when you cannot create an argument, but FYI manhood is not something you and your sisters have the right to even mention AS boring, banal and BIGOTED feminist women.

Hi, very good article. I just don’t understand how “fucks like jerk” would be in any way positive. Jerk = Selfish bastard, the worst kind of lover. The most important thing for me that he actually cares about me and my pleasure too.

I Looooooooooved this post. I have felt the same way for such a long time. Thank God for a wonderful therapist and some serious soul searching I’m coming into my own living, learning and making mistakes (using the word “mistakes” pejoratively because I think they are really eliminating life experiences). I’ve realized how much I have allowed society and the ideas/opinions of others to shape my views on relationships,love, sex etc. I think when you get on a path to figuring out who you are and what you want EVERY experience takes on a different purpose. Meeting new people, dating, things not working out, allowing things to unfold without any definitive sense of where they are headed can be the most majestic, fascinating things. I think society is always pressuring us to find love, find love, find love, have a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife we miss out on just discovering one another. There were times I have been so caught up in where things were or werent going, whether someones behavior aligned with what I was looking for in a partner that I missed out on discovering and appreciating exactly who they were.

Great post. I just wanted to comment on that “men don’t have emotions” myth. There was a conversation at work where one of the guys said something about how guys in general, and him in particular, don’t have emotions. He’s got a wife and 4 kids, and seems to be a pretty doting husband and father, so that struck me as pretty funny, but I didn’t call him on it. What makes it even funnier is that he’s the person on the team that everyone tiptoes around. This is not a woman/man thing — I’m the only woman on a team full of guys. He gets pissy if anyone raises any questions about his work, goes off angrily when asked to do something that he thinks is lower status than his role, and so on. But of course, anger isn’t a girly “emotion”.

(have you ever noticed how quick men are to put down other men to women, at least in my experience?)

sigh. not only that, “emotional” so quickly translates to “hysterical/crazy” (as in “my ex-girlfriend is one crazy bitch”) which gives men another reason to want to distance themselves from this idea of “emotion”.

here are some interesting tidbits:

“Men don’t pick up emotional nuance as quickly as women do, and women put emotion into words faster,” says researcher Louann Brizendine, M.D., author of The Female Brain. In women’s brains, the left and right hemispheres more often work simultaneously. This means women relay messages from the amygdala, where emotions are triggered, to the brain’s left hemisphere, where those emotions are verbalized, more quickly.”

( so it’s not that women have emotions and men don’t; women just process them differently, more quickly — and much more openly. meanwhile, many men grow up getting those so-called ‘soft’ emotions bullied and beaten out of them in order to be a proper man)

“….new research reveals that a man’s emotional life is as complex and rich as a woman’s, but often remains a mystery to him as well as to any woman who loves him.

Although emotions have long been considered a female trademark, men report feelings as often as women and describe their experiences of emotion similarly. In an analysis of the emotional intelligence of 500,000 adults, men rated just as high in emotional awareness. In studies of married couples, husbands proved as attuned to their mates’ stress levels as wives and just as capable of offering support.

Although both men and women sigh, cry, rejoice, rage, shout and pout, the sexes process and express emotions differently. “Emotions live in the background of a man’s life and the foreground of a woman’s,” says psychologist Josh Coleman, PhD, author of The Lazy Husband. “Testosterone dampens feelings in men, who compartmentalize and intellectualize more. Women seem naturally more in touch with their emotions, while men have to work at it. But when they do, it’s a win-win situation. They discover a whole new dimension of themselves. Their relationships are happier, and they’re happier too.”